FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT'S "NAVY DAY ADDRESS" ON THE ATTACK ON THE DESTROYER KEARNEY

October 27, 1941

[White House news release.]

Five months ago tonight I proclaimed to the American
people the existence of a state of unlimited emergency.

Since then much has happened. Our Army and Navy are
temporarily in Iceland in the defense of the Western
Hemisphere.

Hitler has attacked shipping in areas close to the
Americas in the North and South Atlantic.

Many American-owned merchant ships have been sunk on the
high seas. One American destroyer was attacked on September
fourth. Another destroyer was attacked and hit on October
seventeenth. Eleven brave and loyal men of our Navy were
killed by the Nazis.

We have wished to avoid shooting. But the shooting has
started. And history has recorded who fired the first shot.
In the long run, however, all that will matter is who fired
the last shot.

America has been attacked. The U.S.S. Kearny is
not just a navy ship. She belongs to every man, woman and
child in this nation.

Illinois, Alabama, California, North Carolina, Ohio,
Louisiana Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arkansas, New York,
Virginia-those are the home states of the honored dead and
wounded of the Kearny. Hitler's torpedo was directed
at every American whether he lives on our sea coasts or in
the innermost part of the nation, far from the seas and far
from the guns and tanks of the marching hordes of would-be
conquerors of the world.

The purpose of Hitler's attack was to frighten the
American people off the high seas-to force us to make a
trembling retreat. This is not the first time he has
misjudged the American spirit. That spirit is now aroused.

If our national policy were to be dominated by the fear
of shooting, then all of our ships and those of our sister
Republics would have to be tied up in home harbors. Our Navy
would have to remain respectfully-abjectly-behind any line
which Hitler might decree on any ocean as his own dictated
version of his own war zone.

Naturally we reject that absurd and insulting suggestion.
We reject it because of our own self-interest, because of our
own self-respect, because, most of all, of our own good
faith. Freedom of the seas is now, as it has always been, a
fundamental policy of your government and mine.

Hitler has often protested that his plans for conquest do
not extend across the Atlantic Ocean. But his submarines and
raiders prove otherwise. So does the entire design of his new
world order.

For example, I have in my possession a secret map made in
Germany by Hitler's government-by the planners of the new
world order. It is a map of South America and a part of
Central America, as Hitler proposes to reorganize it. Today
in this area there are fourteen separate countries. The
geographical experts of Berlin, however, have ruthlessly
obliterated all existing boundary lines; and have divided
South America into five vassal states, bringing the whole
continent under their domination. And they have also so
arranged it that the territory of one of these new puppet
states includes the Republic of Panama and our great life
line-the Panama Canal.

That is his plan. It will never go into effect.

This map makes clear the Nazi design not only against
South America but against the United States itself.

Your government has in its possession another document
made in Germany by Hitler's government. It is a detailed
plan, which, for obvious reasons, the Nazis did not wish and
do not wish to publicize just yet, but which they are ready
to impose-a little later-on a dominated world-if Hitler wins.
It is a plan to abolish all existing religions-Protestant,
Catholic, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish alike. The
property of all churches will be seized by the Reich and its
puppets. The cross and all other symbols of religion are to
be forbidden. The clergy are to be forever silenced under
penalty of the concentration camps, where even now so many
fearless men are being tortured because they have placed God
above Hitler.

In the place of the churches of our civilization, there
is to be set up an International Nazi Church-a church which
will be served by orators sent out by the Nazi Government. In
the place of the Bible, the words of Mein Kampf will
be imposed and enforced as Holy Writ. And in place of the
cross of Christ will be put two symbols-the swastika and the
naked sword.

A God of Blood and Iron will take the place of the God of
Love and Mercy. Let us well ponder that statement which I
have made tonight.

These grim truths which I have told you of the present
and future plans of Hitlerism will of course be hotly denied
tonight and tomorrow in the controlled press and radio of the
Axis Powers. And some Americans-not many-will continue to
insist that Hitler's plans need not worry us-and that we
should not concern ourselves with anything that goes on
beyond rifle shot of our own shores.

The protestations of these American citizens-few in
number-will, as usual, be paraded with applause through the
Axis press and radio during the next few days, in an effort
to convince the world that the majority of Americans are
opposed to their duly chosen Government, and in reality are
only waiting to jump on Hitler's band wagon when it comes
this way.

The motive of such Americans is not the point at issue.
The fact is that Nazi propaganda continues in desperation to
seize upon such isolated statements as proof of American
disunity.

The Nazis have made up their own list of modern American
heroes. It is, fortunately, a short list. I am glad that it
does not contain my name.

All of us Americans, of all opinions, are faced with the
choice between the kind of world we want to live in and the
kind of world which Hitler and his hordes would impose upon
us.

None of us wants to burrow under the ground and live in
total darkness like a comfortable mole.

The forward march of Hitler and of Hitlerism can be
stopped-and it will be stopped.

Very simply and very bluntly-we are pledged to pull our
own oar in the destruction of Hitlerism.

And when we have helped to end the curse of Hitlerism we
shall help to establish a new peace which will give to decent
people everywhere a better chance to live and prosper in
security and in freedom and in faith.

Each day that passes we are producing and providing more
and more arms for the men who are fighting on actual
battle-fronts. That is our primary task.

And it is the nation's will that these vital arms and
supplies of all kinds shall neither be locked up in American
harbors nor sent to the bottom of the sea. It is the nation's
will that America shall deliver the goods. In open defiance
of that will, our ships have been sunk and our sailors have
been killed.

I say that we do not propose to take this lying down.

Our determination not to take it lying down has been
expressed in the orders to the American Navy to shoot on
sight. Those orders stand.

Furthermore, the House of Representatives has already
voted to amend part of the Neutrality Act of 1937, today
outmoded by force of violent circumstances. The Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations has also recommended
elimination of other hamstringing provisions in that Act.
That is the course of honesty and of realism.

Our American merchant ships must be armed to defend
themselves against the rattlesnakes of the sea.

Our American merchant ships must be free to carry our
American goods into the harbors of our friends.

Our American merchant ships must be protected by our
American Navy.

It can never be doubted that the goods will be delivered
by this nation, whose Navy believes in the tradition of
"Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!"

Yes, our nation will and must speak from every assembly
line. Yes, from every coal mine-the all-inclusive whole of
our vast industrial machine. Our factories and our shipyards
are constantly expanding. Our output must be multiplied.

It cannot be hampered by the selfish obstruction of any
small but dangerous minority of industrial managers who
perhaps hold out for extra profits, or for "business as
usual." It cannot be hampered by the selfish obstruction
of a small but dangerous minority of labor leaders who are a
menace-for labor as a whole knows that that small minority is
a menace-to the true cause of labor itself, as well as to the
nation as a whole.

The lines of our essential defense now cover all the
seas; and to meet the extraordinary demands of today and
tomorrow our Navy grows to unprecedented size. Our Navy is
ready for action. Indeed, units of it in the Atlantic patrol
are in action. Its officers and men need no praise from me.

Our new Army is steadily developing the strength needed
to withstand the aggressors. Our soldiers of today are worthy
of the proudest traditions of the United States Army. But
traditions cannot shoot down dive bombers or destroy tanks.
That is why we must and shall provide, for every one of our
soldiers, equipment and weapons-not merely as good but better
than that of any other army on earth. And we are doing that
right now.

For this-and all of this-is what we mean by total
national defense.

The first objective of that defense is to stop Hitler. He
can be stopped and can be compelled to dig in. And that will
be the beginning of the end of his downfall, because
dictatorship of the Hitler type can live only through
continuing victories-increasing conquests.

The facts of 1918 are proof that a mighty German army and
a tired German people can crumble rapidly and go to pieces
when they are faced with successful resistance.

Nobody who admires qualities of courage and endurance can
fail to be stirred by the full-fledged resistance of the
Russian people. The Russians are fighting for their own soil
and their own homes. Russia needs all kinds of help-planes,
tanks, guns, medical supplies and other aids-toward the
successful defense against the invaders. From the United
States and from Britain, she is getting great quantities of
those essential supplies. But the needs of her huge army will
continue-and our help and British help will have to continue!

The other day the Secretary of State of the United States
was asked by a Senator to justify our giving aid to Russia.
His reply was: "The answer to that, Senator, depends on
how anxious a person is to stop and destroy the march of
Hitler in his conquest of the world. If he were anxious
enough to defeat Hitler, he would not worry about who was
helping to defeat him."

Upon our American production falls the colossal task of
equipping our own armed forces, and helping to supply the
British, the Russians and the Chinese. In the performance of
that task we dare not fail. And we will not fail.

It has not been easy for us Americans to adjust ourselves
to the shocking realities of a world in which the principles
of common humanity and common decency are being mowed down by
the firing squads of The Gestapo. We have enjoyed many of
God's blessings. We have lived in a broad and abundant land,
and by our industry and productivity we have made it
flourish.

There are those who say that our great good fortune has
betrayed us-that we are now no match for the regimented
masses who have been trained in the Spartan ways of ruthless
brutality. They say that we have grown fat, and flabby, and
lazy-and that we are doomed.

But those who say that know nothing of America or of
American life.

They do not know that this land is great because it is a
land of endless challenge. Our country was first populated,
and it has been steadily developed, by men and women in whom
there burned the spirit of adventure and restlessness and
individual independence which will not tolerate oppression.

Ours has been a story of vigorous challenges which have
been accepted and overcome-challenges of uncharted seas, of
wild forests and desert plains, of raging floods and
withering drought, of foreign tyrants and domestic strife, of
staggering problems-social, economic and physical; and we
have come out of them the most powerful nation-and the
freest-in all of history.

Today in the face of this newest and greatest challenge
of them all we Americans have cleared our decks and taken our
battle stations. We stand ready in the defense of our nation
and the faith of our fathers to do what God has given us the
power to see as our full duty.